To minimise the risk of farmers' claims for compensation from feed compounders.

To minimise the potential damage to compound feed markets through adverse publicity.

To maximise freedom of action for feed compounders, notably by maintaining the availability of meat and bone meal as a raw material in animal feeds, and ensuring time is available to make any changes which may be required.

snip...

THE FUTURE

4..........

MAFF remains under pressure in Brussels and is not skilled at handling potentially explosive issues.

5. Tests _may_ show that ruminant feeds have been sold which contain illegal traces of ruminant protein. More likely, a few positive test results will turn up but proof that a particular feed mill knowingly supplied it to a particular farm will be difficult if not impossible.

6. The threat remains real and it will be some years before feed compounders are free of it. The longer we can avoid any direct linkage between feed milling _practices_ and actual BSE cases, the more likely it is that serious damage can be avoided. ...

Possible contamination of animal feed ingredients, including ingredients that are used in feed for dairy animals, with ruminant derived meat and bone meal. RECALLS ENFORCEMENT REPORT FOR AUGUST 9, 2006 KY, LA, MS, AL, GA, AND TN 11,000+ TONS

http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/ENFORCE/2006/ENF00964.html

The feed was manufactured from materials that may have been contaminated with mammalian protein. RECALL MI MAMMALIAN PROTEIN VOLUME OF PRODUCT IN COMMERCE 27,694,240 lbs

http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/enforce/2006/ENF00963.html

Animal and fish feeds which were possibly contaminated with ruminant based protein not labeled as "Do not feed to ruminants". RECALL AL AND FL VOLUME OF PRODUCT IN COMMERCE 125 TONS Products manufactured from 02/01/2005 until 06/06/2006

http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/enforce/2006/ENF00963.html

USDA 2003

We have to be careful that we don't get so set in the way we do things that we forget to look for different emerging variations of disease. We've gotten away from collecting the whole brain in our systems. We're using the brain stem and we're looking in only one area. In Norway, they were doing a project and looking at cases of Scrapie, and they found this where they did not find lesions or PRP in the area of the obex. They found it in the cerebellum and the cerebrum. It's a good lesson for us. Ames had to go back and change the procedure for looking at Scrapie samples. In the USDA, we had routinely looked at all the sections of the brain, and then we got away from it. They've recently gone back. Dr. Keller: Tissues are routinely tested, based on which tissue provides an 'official' test result as recognized by APHIS.

Dr. Detwiler: That's on the slaughter. But on the clinical cases, aren't they still asking for the brain? But even on the slaughter, they're looking only at the brainstem. We may be missing certain things if we confine ourselves to one area.

snip.............

Dr. Detwiler: It seems a good idea, but I'm not aware of it. Another important thing to get across to the public is that the negatives do not guarantee absence of infectivity. The animal could be early in the disease and the incubation period. Even sample collection is so important. If you're not collecting the right area of the brain in sheep, or if collecting lymphoreticular tissue, and you don't get a good biopsy, you could miss the area with the PRP in it and come up with a negative test. There's a new, unusual form of Scrapie that's been detected in Norway. We have to be careful that we don't get so set in the way we do things that we forget to look for different emerging variations of disease. We've gotten away from collecting the whole brain in our systems. We're using the brain stem and we're looking in only one area. In Norway, they were doing a project and looking at cases of Scrapie, and they found this where they did not find lesions or PRP in the area of the obex. They found it in the cerebellum and the cerebrum. It's a good lesson for us. Ames had to go back and change the procedure for looking at Scrapie samples. In the USDA, we had routinely looked at all the sections of the brain, and then we got away from it. They've recently gone back.

Dr. Keller: Tissues are routinely tested, based on which tissue provides an 'official' test result as recognized by APHIS .

Dr. Detwiler: That's on the slaughter. But on the clinical cases, aren't they still asking for the brain? But even on the slaughter, they're looking only at the brainstem. We may be missing certain things if we confine ourselves to one area.

snip...

FULL TEXT;

Completely Edited Version PRION ROUNDTABLE

Accomplished this day, Wednesday, December 11, 2003, Denver, Colorado

2005

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AFTER this administration put Dr. Detwiler out to pasture cause she did not agree with there BSE protocols, she was so wrong, she now works to make sure our beef at McDonald's is safe cause McDonalds saw the writing on the wall ;

International Scientific Advisory Council McDonald's International Scientific Advisory Council adds further strength to our beef safety program by providing independent expert scientific and medical advice on bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE).

Dr. Beat Hörnlimann, MPH. Managing Director, SVISS Consulting, BSE 7192 Ltd., an organization that provides expert advice on public and animal health, particularly with respect to BSE. Formerly Chief Veterinary Officer, Public Health Department, Kanton Zug, Switzerland. Led Swiss BSE and scrapie eradication program and served in numerous other senior-level staff and advisory positions related to TSEs. Author of a book on prions and prion diseases in humans and animals.

Dr. David Kessler. Dean, School of Medicine, Yale University and former Commissioner, U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Author of A Question of Intent (on federal tobacco regulation efforts) and numerous articles in major medical journals. Member, Board of Directors, Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, Doctors of the World, National Center for Addiction and Substance, Henry Kaiser Family Foundation. Recipient of numerous medical public service awards, including the American Heart Association National Public Affairs Special Recognition Award, American Academy of Pediatrics Excellence in Public Service Award, and American Cancer Society Medal of Honor.

Dr. Colin Masters. Professor and Head, Department of Pathology, University of Melbourne. Specialist in neuropathology. Member, numerous national and international medical professional societies.

Dr. Carols Messuti. Ministry of Livestock, Agriculture, and Fishing, Government of Uruguay and Delegate to the OIE, the UN's principal agency for animal diseases.

Dr. James Toole. Walter C. Teagle Professor of Neurology, Professor of Public Health Sciences, and Director, Stroke Research Center, Wake Forest University School of Medicine. President, International Stroke Society; member and past-president, World Federation of Neurology; member and past-president American Neurological Association; fellow, Royal College of Physicians; master, American College of Physicians. Author of Cerebrovascular Disorders and over 600 medical textbook chapters; co-editor Handbook of Clinical Neurology. Former editor, Journal of the Neurological Sciences.

THE USDA JUNE 2004 ENHANCED BSE SURVEILLANCE PROGRAM WAS TERRIBLY FLAWED ;

CDC DR. PAUL BROWN TSE EXPERT COMMENTS 2006

The U.S. Department of Agriculture was quick to assure the public earlier this week that the third case of mad cow disease did not pose a risk to them, but what federal officials have not acknowledged is that this latest case indicates the deadly disease has been circulating in U.S. herds for at least a decade.

The second case, which was detected last year in a Texas cow and which USDA officials were reluctant to verify, was approximately 12 years old.

These two cases (the latest was detected in an Alabama cow) present a picture of the disease having been here for 10 years or so, since it is thought that cows usually contract the disease from contaminated feed they consume as calves. The concern is that humans can contract a fatal, incurable, brain-wasting illness from consuming beef products contaminated with the mad cow pathogen.

"The fact the Texas cow showed up fairly clearly implied the existence of other undetected cases," Dr. Paul Brown, former medical director of the National Institutes of Health's Laboratory for Central Nervous System Studies and an expert on mad cow-like diseases, told United Press International. "The question was, 'How many?' and we still can't answer that."

Brown, who is preparing a scientific paper based on the latest two mad cow cases to estimate the maximum number of infected cows that occurred in the United States, said he has "absolutely no confidence in USDA tests before one year ago" because of the agency's reluctance to retest the Texas cow that initially tested positive.

USDA officials finally retested the cow and confirmed it was infected seven months later, but only at the insistence of the agency's inspector general.

"Everything they did on the Texas cow makes everything USDA did before 2005 suspect," Brown said. ...snip...end